BEACHCOMBER 106 YEARS OLD AND STILL A EUR0VISIONARY...

MY OLD friend Prof. Norvus Breakdown has held the Ikea Chair in Contemporary Lifestyle at the University of North Brent for many years now, but I have rarely seen him appear so miserable as when I dropped in a few days ago. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

He looked up at me sadly, saying: “We came so close, so close.”

I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant so asked him what we had come close to.

His reply surprised me: “Why, the Eurovision Song Contest, of course. I knew I should have offered my services to the country, but I failed to do so.”

“Er, which country?” I asked, still bemused, but his reply of “the United Kingdom” failed to clarify matters. “But we finished last but one, 559 points behind Sweden,” I said. “I don’t think it was your fault. And to be frank, I’ve never been impressed by your voice.”

“My singing voice has nothing to do with it,” he said angrily. “It’s my statistical prowess that I should have offered.”

“Please explain,” I begged, and he flung a results sheet at me.

“Just look at Sweden,” he said. “A country of six letters, with a six-letter song, Tattoo, sung by a six-letter singer, Loreen. They were the only entry for which the country, song and singer all had the same number of letters. Everyone loves symmetry and that’s why they won. Five of the other top nine had the same number of letters in two of the country, singer, song names categories, an equality only achieved by two of the other 17. Also, none of the top three countries sang songs with a letter ‘e’ in their titles – 22 of the other 26 did.” “Interesting,” I said, “but how could all of this have helped the UK?” “Cast your mind back to 1969,” he said. “Lulu shared first place with Boom Bang-a-Bang, which has 13 letters, the same as United Kingdom. And the title has no ‘e’.”

“But Lulu has only four letters,” I said. “Her full name was Lulu KennedyCairns,” he said. “She used the wrong part. The 13-letter surname alone would surely have given her undivided first place.” “So what should we have done?” I asked. “Holly Mae Muller shouldn’t have dropped the first name but shortened it to Holy, or even ’Olly,” he said. “And the song title was not right. Holy Mae Muller with ‘I Sing This Song’ would have hit 13-letter perfection, no ‘e’, and shared first with Sweden.”